Trump Watch

11 weeks and counting: HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post explains how Kerry is doing in the swing states: especially Ohio. He’s got to win Ohio.

plus: ROBBIE CONAL‘s art attack: America’s foremost street artist talks about about politics, power, and posters. He called his new book Artburn.

And: Jews in American popular culture: historian PAUL BUHLE looks at film, music, and comics: his new book is From the Lower East Side to Hollywood.

Republicans: hands off Johnny Cash! Info at www.DefendJohnnyCash.org

support the key voter engagement group working in the battleground states: Americans Coming Together, www.actforvictory.org

Robert Greenwald’s terrific documentary “OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” is playing now in LA at the Laemmle Fairfax and other theaters.

“The dollars are green. The terror level is orange. And everybody’s seeing red. Welcome to Bush World.” That’s what JOHN POWERS, columnist for the LA Weekly, says. His his hilarious and brilliant new book is Sore Winners (and the Rest of Us) in George Bush’s America.

Also: the staggering trail of evasions and deceit behind the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic church: JASON BERRY traces the problem up to the Vatican and Pope John Paul II. His new book is Vows of Silence.

Plus: the moving and surprising political odyssey of ROBERT MEEROPOL, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and now executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children. He wrote An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey.

What’s the matter with Kansas? How come they vote Republican, even though that’s against their class interests? TOM FRANK explains the funny thing about the class war in America today: it’s about culture; it should be about economics. Tom’s new book is What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.

Plus: is Social Security in “crisis”? Are deficits always bad? What about the Bush deficit? MICHAEL MEEROPOL explains economic issues with refreshing clarity– he wrote the book Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution.

Also: IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation, with analysis of the fighting in Najaf and Baghdad. Ian’s new book is Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.

web extra: watch the new attack ad from “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” — www.swiftvets.com — claiming Kerry “lied” about his Vietnam record —
and see Joe Conason’s critique, “Smear Boat Veterans for Bush” at www.Salon.com: “The “swift boat” veterans attacking John Kerry’s war record are led by veteran right-wing operatives using the same vicious techniques they used against John McCain four years ago.”

What will it take for Kerry to beat Bush? HAROLD MEYERSON has some ideas; he writes for the LA Weekly and the Washington Post op-ed page.

State Senator SHEILA KUEHL of Santa Monica reports from Sacramento on the prison guards and the new budget, and Schwartzenegger and the girly men.

And SAUL LANDAU talks about his new book, The Business of America: how consumers have replaced citizens, and how we can reverse the trend.

Calendar note: Outfoxed, Robert Greenwald’s documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, opens in LA this weeked at Laemmle’s Fairfax theater on Beverly and Fairfax: view the trailer for “Outfoxed”

web extra: Will Ferrell as George Bush trying to tape a TV commercial: http://whitehousewest.com/

BARBARA EHRENREICH talks about George Bush and John Kerry — she’s now writing an op-ed column for the New York Times. Her book Nickel and Dimed was on the best seller list for 86 weeks.

Plus: The upcoming trial of Saddam — what kind of justice is this? IAN WILLIAMS explains — his new book is Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.

And: Dissident Jewish writing about Israel and Zionism: ADAM SHATZ, literary editor of The Nation, looks at writers from Einstein and Freud down to I. F. Stone and Noam Chomsky. His new book is Prophets Outcast.

Also: The great new documentary, “The Corporation“ opens Friday July 9 in L.A. at the Nuart and plays thru July 22 — we’ll speak with producer-director Mark Achbar.

View the trailer for “The Corporation”: http://www.thecorporation.tv/trailer/
Get the book The Corporation by Joel Bakan

The president and the war: HAROLD MEYERSON, op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, comments on the transfer of “sovreignty” in Baghdad — and on the new poll showing Bush at his lowest approval ratings ever.

Also: the Supreme Court rules against the president on the prisoners at Guantanamo — DAVID COLE explains what rights they have — his new book is Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism.

And: The Rosenberg case and its effect on a family: filmmaker IVY MEEROPOL, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, talks about her new documentary “Heir to an Execution” — it’s been showing on HBO.

Plus: MICHAEL MOORE’s great new film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” set records last weekend. DOUG HENWOOD comments.

Read Stuart Klawans in The Nation on Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”

See the CBS-New York Times poll: Bush’s lowest approval ratings ever.

Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” View the trailer.

Abu Ghraib and the military’s cult of masculinity: CAROL BURKE explains the toxic combination of misogyny and homophobia in military culture. Her new book is Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture. She also wrote The Nation‘s cover story Kinda Fonda Jane: Why They Love to Hate Her.”

Also: the lasting relevance of 1968: the year the rocked the world: MARK KURLANSKY explains.

And TOM HAYDEN talks about gangs and the gang violence that has killed 25,000 young people in America since 1980, and the neocon politics of law and order that only make things worse. Tom’s new book is Street Wars: Gangs and the Future of Violence, out now from The New Press. Tom recently wrote about the terrible prison fire in Honduras, “Homies were burning alive.”

How Los Angeles re-made its Mexican Past: historian WILLIAM DEVERELL explains — his new book is Whitewashed Adobe. Mike Davis called it “a landmark in Los Angeles’ difficult conversation with its past.”

Plus: our Iraq update with IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation; his book Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past, will be published by Nation Books in July.

Also: JONATHAN SCHELL of The Nation Institute talks about war, terrorism and protest; his new book is A Hole in the World.

Women, men and torture in Iraq: KATHA POLLITT, columnist for The Nation, comments.

Plus: REBECCA SOLNIT won the 2004 award for criticism from the National Book Critics Circle. Now she argues that despite the gathering political, environmental, and cultural gloom, we need “an imagination adequate to the possibilities.” Her new book is Hope in the Dark.

Also: Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl“ was written 50 years ago as a cultural weapon and a call to arms. JONAH RASKIN talks about the most influential poem of the second half of the 20th century; and we’ll listen to Ginsberg reading. Jonah’s new book is American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation.

Web extra: the Gallup Poll approval ratings say Bush will lose in November.

. . . and check out the Cost Of War website.

Israel’s Gaza pullout plan: even Israel’s defense minister calls the Israeli settlements in Gaza a “historic mistake.” But the Likud party last week voted 60-40 against the plan. This Saturday night Peace Now takes to the streets in Tel Aviv to demand “Remove the Settlements.” What’s next for Ariel Sharon? AMY WILENTZ, former Jerusalem correspondent for the New Yorker, has comment and analysis; she wrote the novel Martyr’s Crossing about Israelis and Palestinians.

Plus: the strange story of a 1913 murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta — and the lynching of the man accused of the murder — not a black man, but a Jew, Leo Frank. How and why an all-white jury convicted Frank largely on the testimony of a black man: STEVE ONEY tells that story: his book is The Dead Shall Rise: The Lynching of Leo Frank.

Also: May 17 is the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, in which a unanimous Supreme Court declared that segregated schools were “Inherently unequal.” Historian ERIC FONER co-edited a special issue of The Nation arguing that the promise of equality in education, and the rest of American life, remains unfulfilled.

Web extra: The Zogby Poll predicts Kerry will win in November.